Electronic mail (E-mail) applications provide users with the ability to store messages in logical groups within the interface. E-mail applications also may allow users to group stored messages into logical “conversations.” Each conversation is a group of related messages including a root message and replies to the root message or to one another. When arranged by conversation, messages are displayed in a user interface of the e-mail application as a list of conversations grouped by message subject or thread. The conversations may be sorted by date, and the messages within each conversation may be sorted based on who replied to whom.
Some e-mail applications may limit the display of conversation items to the current view such that messages are not grouped together as a single conversation. Other e-mail applications may aggregate information in a user mailbox regardless of the message location relative to a user view. Consequently, improvements to item management and display techniques are needed to solve these and other problems and to enhance the experience of users in various usage scenarios.